COSAM News Articles 2020 May Message from Dean Giordano - May 5, 2020

Message from Dean Giordano - May 5, 2020

Published: 05/05/2020

To all faculty, staff and students in COSAM,

Thank you to everyone for helping us complete this academic year.

COSAM proudly celebrates 376 students graduating this semester.

Although we have had to quickly make changes during the spring semester for the COVID-19 response, we also have outstanding points to highlight in our college.

A few weeks ago, I shared the winners of numerous awards including Dean's Medalists and Dean's Research Awards.

COSAM faculty and staff have also been recognized for an array of notable accomplishments this year including:

Ryan Comes from the Department of Physics was the first faculty from Auburn to receive the Air Force's Young Investigator Award.

Monika Raj from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is the only researcher in the entire state named a 2020 Sloan Fellow.

Three faculty have been honored with NSF CAREER awards: Byron Farnum and Evangelos Miliordos from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Daniel Warner from the Department of Biological Sciences.

Drew Bonner is the recipient of the Comer Medal in the biological sciences category and Leann Kopp is the recipient in the physical sciences category.

We have also had continued success working on space-related research projects. Lori Scott completed her second project involving the microgravity experiment inside the International Space Station. Mark Liles and his students conducted research aimed at preventing spacecrafts that will visit other bodies in the solar system from introducing contamination from Earth. Dennis Bodewits and his post-doc Zexi Xing conducted research on comet 2I/Borisov, and received coverage from around the world.

Read more about the three NSF CAREER award recipients in this week's COSAM Today and look for more faculty and student accolades in upcoming issues of COSAM Today.

Thank you for helping us finish this semester and providing a high-quality education for all of our students. Without your dedication and commitment to our college, this would not be possible.

Thank you for all that you do for COSAM.